No more Marvel games coming from Sega

Marvel has confirmed that Captain America will be the last of its licenses to be published by Sega.

No reason was given for the fact that there are no current plans for additional Marvel games to be published by Sega, though the critical maulings received by the likes of Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk cannot of helped.

That’s not to say that Marvel has lost interest in video games. Indeed, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel’s VP of games production TQ Jefferson asserted that “video games have become more and more important” to the company over the past decade”.

But whereas a decade ago consoles would have been the go-to platform for such titles, nowadays the likes of Facebook have become arguably more appealing platforms.

“We just launched Marvel: Avengers Alliance on Facebook; which is just the tip of the iceberg,” Jefferson stated. “This is the first in a much larger effort to support the Avengers franchise across not just one but multiple video game touch points.

“The Avengers are bigger than just one game, and we’re planning to allow consumers to enjoy The Avengers regardless of their preference in gameplay style or platform. Look for more announcements in the weeks to come.”

The change of tact is not just due to the growing influence of social media. Indeed, Marvel admits that it may also be in recognition of the fact that an expensive to develop console title is perhaps simply not the right model for comic and superhero licenses.

“In my opinion, the biggest afflictions affecting movie-licensed games is the amount of development time and a strict adherence to retelling the story of the film in the form of a game,” he added.

“The former is easy to understand – less development time means less time to design, produce and polish the game, resulting in a poor or lesser-quality experience. The latter is a little more subtle, but I can sum it up thusly: If a development team were to follow a film’s plot line to the letter, then you would have a two-hour experience with a bunch of thugs and one boss fight. That’s simply not how we define “movie licensed console game,” now or ever.

“In order to hit the expected amount of gameplay, you need to embellish, add additional characters, story, subplots and objectives to make a more robust and satisfying experience. That’s where a lot of movie licenses fall down – lack of content.”

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